


secret muffins

by orphan_account



Series: ryance [1]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Fluff, Getting Together, Humor, M/M, Pining Lance (Voltron), Pining Ryan Kinkade, ig dunno it's fun tho, oh and i love to hc that ryan and pidge were best buds so :), trust me he's pining ;), uh also i got emotional over pidge so you'll see me pouring my love for her here
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-17
Updated: 2020-09-17
Packaged: 2021-03-07 22:27:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,206
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26515180
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: “You know,” she says and nudges her knee into his thigh. “If you wanna go on a date with Lance you’ll have to actually talk with words like a normal, social creature.”Or, Pidge decides to take matters into her own hands.
Relationships: Ryan Kinkade & Pidge | Katie Holt, Ryan Kinkade/Lance
Series: ryance [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1927933
Comments: 5
Kudos: 42





	secret muffins

**Author's Note:**

> hello and welcome to me abusing commas!
> 
> this slowly turned into a "loving pidge hours" kind of fic, but whatever, i love her and think she'd be an amazing friend (suck it vld writers!).
> 
> anyway, ryance is very cute and if you're here, i'm gonna assume you agree, so have this mindless, ridiculous fluff.
> 
> enjoy!

Contrary to what Rizavi had said twenty minutes ago, Ryan is not sulking.

“Wow, she was right, you  _ are _ sulking,” Pidge says, entering his room completely uninvited. Ryan grunts, sinks his head further into his pillow. He feels Pidge plop down next to him on the bed, the clatter of her laptop audible. She kicks him in the side, a lot painfully than she used to before going to space and training every day, and Ryan obliges, rolls over to give her space, and to stare up at the ceiling.

“What was it today?” she asks, getting comfortable with her laptop balanced on her legs.

“He took down three drones with one shot.”

“Hm, yeah, that was pretty cool.”

Cool is an understatement. Lance was so attractive at that moment that Ryan got tackled down for getting distracted. Lance’s helmet had been shoved off of him during the battle, so Ryan had a clear view of Lance’s hair curling on the base of his neck, damp with sweat, his cheeks flushed from exertion, and the most intensely serious expression on his face—long story short, he was very hot and Kinkade, poor, poor Kindake is very weak.

“Why’s your bed so hard,” Pidge complains.

“Hm.”

“Oh, mom developed a new kind of yeast yesterday, told me to tell you about it, she thinks this one speeds up the cooking process, not just the rise.”

“Hm.”

“And Hunk added that night vision to your rifle you asked for.”

“Hm.”

“You know,” she says and nudges her knee into his thigh. “If you wanna go on a date with Lance you’ll have to actually  _ talk _ with  _ words _ like a normal, social creature.”

“Won’t be a problem, I love talking to him.”

Pidge is quiet for a moment, Ryan looks at her and sees that she’s carrying a rare, strangely warm expression. As usual, her hair is a mess, the tiny knot on the crown of her head pretty much useless. It makes her look younger, softer at the edges like she’d been all those years ago on their late-night hangout sessions. 

Ryan had known right from the start that the new kid wasn’t a boy,  _ definitely _ not a boy named Pidge. That’s why he made sure she felt comfortable enough to ask him for help if she’d ever need it. Also, it was fun hanging out with her, he didn’t have to talk much, she’d just do her thing with her computer and Ryan did his thing sleeping or studying.

“You’re shameless,” she says finally.

Ryan shrugs, unbothered, and says: “It’s true.”

“Know what else is true? That you’re a pussy.”

Ryan glares at her.

“You’re glaring means nothing to me, especially after I saw you cry over Naruto,” she says dismissively. “I’m serious, when are you gonna ask him out?”

“It’s not like I’m not trying,” he grumbles. “I’ve been for the last two weeks if you  _ must  _ know.”

“It seems I must because you haven’t been trying enough.”

Ryan ignores her.

He has been trying. He even has some lines ready, a casual  _ wanna train together  _ or  _ I found a great place to test our aiming skills  _ or  _ hey, I can’t put my rifle together, wanna show me how _ . Okay, so perhaps they’re all based on their shared talent of being the eyes of the team, and maybe the last one is too desperate because Ryan is a top rank sniper, but the point is, he has some lines ready and is prepared for a rejection or hopefully, and more preferably, the opposite of rejection.

What he isn’t prepared for is Lance. He’ll walk over to him only to be greeted with a bright, wide smile, those unbelievably brown eyes, and always,  _ always _ a distraction, like:

“Kinkade! Hunk just made these delicious cookies come eat!”

Or:

“Dude, what are you still doing here? Adam is doing a test run on the new fighter jets, let’s go!”

Or:

“Kinkade, have you seen Bae Bae? Shit, Pidge is gonna kill me, I promised to keep an eye on her and she just disappeared!”

Point is, this is hard.

“Okay,” Pidge says suddenly; Ryan jumps a little when she claps her hands. “I already went ahead and made a completely foolproof plan and also a backup plan if my first plan somehow goes south.”

Ryan frowns, cranes his neck to look at her laptop. There, on an ancient 2016 Words Doc—“because my Dad loves this version for some reason,” she had explained once, years ago, when Ryan asked why she hadn’t upgraded it—is a three-page long bullet list.

“We start by you going into the bathroom, standing in front of the mirror and hyping yourself up,” she continues, oblivious to the incredulous look Ryan is currently giving her. “This should only last from two-point-five minutes to three minutes, any less or more and the results won’t be efficient.”

“Katie, what the fuck are you doing?”

“For the sake of the entire crew of Atlas, I’m helping you get laid,” she says, nods her head once solemnly, and adds: “I know, greater heroes have not existed.”

Ryan stares at her.

“Moving on—”

“Please, don’t,” he says and snatches the laptop from her. Despite all the growing she’s done during her time in space, in the end, she’s still a little peanut.

After some fighting and struggling, she huffs and finally plops back down.

“Fine, but you’re gonna go to the west observatory right now and talk to Lance,” she says. “I know he’s there.”

“Can’t you break and rebuild things like you used to and I’ll calmly continue to lay here and do my thing.”

“You do know that I have that entire list memorized and can simply start retelling?” she says, raising an unimpressed brow.

Ryan groans, throws his head back, and asks whatever deity there is to put him out of this specific form of torture that’s known as Pidge. He places the laptop back down and leaves the comfort of his bed.

“Fine,” he grunts, frowning as he puts his boots on.

Pidge looks entirely pleased.

“But later tonight you’re staying with me and we’re watching a very long, very educational documentary about yeast,” he adds.

This time Pidge pales. “Ryan, you love me, you wouldn’t do this.”

“And you’re also in charge of popcorn.”

She flops on the bed, groans, and nods her head. It’s so similar to the reaction she’d had years ago that Ryan can’t help but smile. Despite her being difficult—and, okay, he hasn’t been any better for her either—he missed this. So he ruffles her already messy hair, something he’d gotten into the habit of doing back when they first started to hang out, and stands up to leave.

“Text me if you plan to do the nasties, don’t wanna be here for that,” she calls after him and Ryan, for her sake, decides to ignore it.

.

The west observatory is mainly always empty, everyone prefers the east one solely because it’s closer to the cafeteria and it’s easier to grab a snack and then go watch outer space. Ryan himself usually goes there too. Truthfully, he’s a little surprised to learn that Lance prefers the west observatory, seeing that he’s such a social butterfly.

True to Pidge’s word, he finds Lance in the farthest left corner, curled cozily on the soft, carpeted floor they only have here. There are bags and tiny crumbs of half-finished snacks littered around him, a book split nearly in the middle placed cover-up. Lance himself seems to be lost in thought, leaning against a wall and staring out into the stars; this pocket of space is more void than stars, but it only serves to make the rare balls of light they come across all the more precious.

“Hey,” Ryan says when his presence hasn’t been acknowledged. Lance startles, snaps his eyes at him.

“Oh, Kinkade,” he says, quietly. “Didn’t hear you come in.”

He awkwardly points at the general direction of Lance’s corner and says: “Mind if I…?”

“No, c’mon.” Lance makes a hasty job cleaning up the spot next to him. After he's done, he pats the space as an invitation, smiling up at him.

He’s so beautiful under the low light of this room Ryan almost forgets that he’s supposed to be sitting down.

“Did you find Bae Bae,” he asks, getting comfortable, crosses his legs and slouches slightly.

“Yeah,” Lance says. He’s leaning back on his hands, his feet stretched and crossed at the ankles. “Pidge found out about it still, don’t know how she manages to know everything.”

“My theory is that she’s chipped us all,” Ryan says, then almost soars with pride when it makes Lance laugh.

“Probably true.”

Outside, a remote star appears, ice blue.

“Why are you here?” Ryan asks.

“Hm?”

“I mean,” he adds. “Everyone’s on the east deck.”

“Oh,” Lance says, laughs under his breath. “Yeah, well, not that I don’t like interacting but it’s nice to be alone sometimes.”

Oh.

“I can leave—”

“Relax,” Lance says, grabs his hand when Ryan makes a move to get up; he nearly stops listening just to concentrate on the warmth of Lance’s hand. “I don’t mind talking to you.”

Double oh.

Ryan settles back down and when he looks up, Lance has a soft smile on his face, making his sharp edges blunt. The smile turns mischievous quickly after. “Although, no one ever believes me, saying you never say a word with them.”

“Yeah, well, they’re not you,” he answers, simply, entirely earnest. Lance’s smile grows that much wider, a faint blush on his cheeks. 

He doesn’t let go of Ryan’s hand, placed between them, a small interchange of warmth.

“I’d ask why  _ you’re _ here,” Lance says. “But I have a feeling Pidge has something to do with it.”

Ryan laughs. “Yeah, she’s insufferable.”

“You don’t know insufferable until you have her pranking the entire team,” Lance counters, gesturing aimlessly with his free hand. “Shiro had to lock her in her room so she’d stop replacing his coffee with nunvil.”

Ryan raises an eyebrow.

“ _ I  _ don’t know?” he deadpans. “She made Iverson’s life miserable.”

“Oh right, you guys were best buds back then too.”

“More like I was an underpaid babysitter,” Ryan says. “She forgot to eat, drink water, sleep, and on top of that, I had to come up with excuses about why Iverson’s alarm kept changing into Rick Astley.”

“I remember that,” Lance exclaims, pointing at Ryan for no reason. “He thought it was me until he realized I couldn’t possibly be that good at hacking.”

They laugh, then stare silently into space. The tiny star is making its slow way across the giant window. Lance is tapping his finger, hand still atop Ryan’s, the tip of it hitting Ryan’s third knuckle continuously.

It’s almost embarrassing how fixated he is on it.

“Pidge told me how you used to take care of her when she was undercover,” Lance whispers, he sounds almost absentminded.

“You make it sound like she was on a cool, secret spy mission.”

Lance laughs. “She kinda was though, I mean, at twelve I wouldn’t even have the guts to think about attempting that kind of thing.”

“Yeah.”

Lance pauses, tilts his head slightly to the right, slightly closer to Ryan. He seems to search for the right words.

“It’s probably weird,” he begins. “To say this, but thanks. For looking out for her. I didn’t know her then, definitely didn’t care about her as much as I care about her now but…”

Lance pauses, distracted by his thoughts. Then his hand squeezes Ryan’s, just briefly, just barely noticeable.

“In space, she always reminded me of my siblings because we’d always fight over petty things, and then we found that game and we’d spend nights playing it and she really helped me deal with being homesick and—this is getting long,” he chuckles. “I’m trying to say it’s comforting to know she wasn’t alone back then and had you.”

Lance looks up under his eyelashes, silently appreciative. Ryan’s heart skips a beat or four; Lance is so beautiful it’s unreal.

“It’s comforting that she wasn’t alone in space. And had you,” Ryan says, and he twists his hand under Lance’s, and he twines their fingers together, and he squeezes, just as briefly and barely as Lance had moments ago.

Lance smiles, and even though it’s a small twist of his mouth, his eyes crease at the corners, shine a little brighter; a short lock of hair hangs in his eyes, brushing the base of his nose. Ryan, without thinking, reaches with his free hand and brushes it away.

“You’re not acting very shy now,” Lance says, his cheeks reddening again.

“I’m not shy,” Ryans says, frowning.

“Yeah?” Lance quirks his brown, looking amused. “It’s sure taking you an awfully long time to ask me out.”

Ryan stares at him, eyes wide, his face warmer than usual. Lance stares back, challenging him, grinning a smug, pleased thing. The hair Ryan just pushed away bounces back down stubbornly.

“Lance,” Ryan manages, a little uneven, feeding Lance’s ego. “Will you—”

“Go out on a date with you?” Lance cuts in. “Yes.”

Ryan is not ashamed to admit he smiled like a complete lovefool.

“After we’re back on Earth,” Lance continues, and he leans in, voice saccharine sweet. “I’ll blow your shoes off. I’m talking flowers and chocolates and long, romantic walks on the beach and maybe,” he leans even closer. “A sweet, sunset kiss.”

Unwittingly, Ryan’s gaze travels down to his mouth, pink and soft, and then even slower it travels back up. He’s never seen a brown so warm, and deep, and entirely captivating. He’s not sure he can look away.

“Until then,” Ryan says. “Let me treat you to some delicious muffins I myself did not bake.”

It makes Lance laugh and lean away. His laugh fades into a toothy smile that lights up his entire face.

All of his expressions are so animated, demanding the attention of anything and everything close to him. Well, he’s got Ryan’s attention, has had him wrapped around his finger since the first time Ryan saw him, years ago when they were younger and their uniforms were always a size off. Lance was shorter, his ears comically big, and he was so goofy he couldn't stay in place to save his life. He was also twice the hard-worker, always staying late in the library, textbooks laid open, hair messy where he’d been tugging it.

Ryan never managed to talk to him, for whatever reason it was, and then the Garrison announced three of their students had gone missing, two of which cut a wound deep into Ryan’s chest, bleeding.

In the end, it somehow still worked out, and now that he’s got a taste of Lance’s warmth, and a promise of something warmer, Ryan thinks nothing will keep him away from it.

He gets to his feet, helps Lance up with their linked hands, and together they make their way to the kitchen. It’s approaching the late hours of the night, so the ship is blissfully empty, leaving the two of them alone, smiling like fools and blushing pink when one of them squeezes the other’s hand.

They let go once they enter the kitchen. Ryan grabs the muffins from Hunk’s secret cabinet, which isn’t a secret at all since everyone on the crew knows about it. Lance grabs them both some drinks.

“When do you think he’ll realize that we’re not the only ones who know about that place,” Ryan asks, nodding at the cabinet he’s grabbing muffins from.

“He probably knows,” Lance says. “He loves feeding people.”

Ryan hums.

Lance hops on the counter, swings his legs, and sips his drink.

Ryan steps in front of him and offers him a muffin. Then, when Lance moves his legs a little apart, he steps closer and between them.

“I’ve been trying to ask you out for two weeks,” Ryan says.

“Yeah?” Lance says over a bite. “What got in your way.”

“You.”

Lance wiggles his eyebrows at him; Ryan is so endeared it’s not even funny.

“Me,” he says. “With my pretty eyes.”

It’s probably a joke, but Ryan decides it’s not.

“Yes,” he says. “And your pretty face, and your pretty hair.”

Lance, by the looks of it, wasn’t expecting Ryan to say anything—which, Ryan thinks, is just rude and also impossible—so he blushes, eyes wide and stunned.

“I’d try to say the words and then the next thing I know you’re dragging me away to find a dog or watch jets fly around,” Ryan continues, laughs under his breath once before adding: “And suddenly I can’t remember a single thing I was going to say because you’re holding my hand.”

Lance looks at him a moment longer, swallows, and says: “You weren’t kidding about not being shy.”

There’s a crumb of muffin at the corner of Lance’s lips. Ryan reaches up and drags his thumb there, removing it.

“No, I wasn’t,” he says, adds a little pressure to his thumb right at the edge of Lance’s mouth.

“Ryan,” Lance says softly, and they’ve moved so close that Ryan feels his breath on his mouth, warm and sweet. “If you’re planning to kiss me better make it quick.”

And well, who is he to deny.

He stalls just a second longer, dragging his thumb down to Lance’s bottom lip, parting his mouth, and then he closes the distance.

Lance sighs from his nose, the air warming Ryan’s cheek, and it only fuels him more, causes him to cradle the back of Lance’s head, hold him closer. He pulls back only to tilt his head at a better angle. Then he kisses him again. And again. And again. Until he’s out of breath.

When they do break apart, both breathless, Lance has a red flush on his cheeks, under the handful of freckles there, and his eyes are even darker, and just that much brighter.

“You’re so beautiful,” he says into the space between them, bringing his hand from Lance’s head to his face, brushing his thumb down the warmth of his cheek.

At his words, Lance smiles, glows redder, and pecks a short kiss to his lips.

“Beautiful enough to get distracted during a mission, apparently,” Lance says and smirks when Ryan throws his head back and groans. “I saw you fall, it was cute.”

“Glad to know you noticed,” he grumbles.

“Oh, I noticed,” Lance says. “Also noticed how you  _ threw _ an entire  _ Galra _ with your bare hands, it was the hottest th— _ mmph _ .”

Ryan kisses him, mainly so Lance won’t see the blush steadily painting his face. His comm buzzes in his pocket, but he’s too distracted to give it any attention.

.

_ (22:13) Pidge: you’ve been gone for a while so i sneaked away _

_ (22:13) Pidge: think we can agree i deserve to be far far away from those documentaries _

_ (22:26) Pidge: veronica saw you guys holding hands _

_ (22:26) Pidge: and now half the crew owes me money, all thanks to you _

_ (22:31) Pidge: P.S. the room is empty, by the by ;) _

**Author's Note:**

> they're so cute!
> 
> i had a lot of fun writing this! was gonna write this from lance's pov but somehow ended up in ryan's and now i love him a little more.
> 
> comments and kudos are appreciated!
> 
> you can find me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/alexisspacedust) and on [tumblr](https://alexisspacedust.tumblr.com/)!


End file.
